Biography

Born as Jacob Otten on 19-5 1981 in Naarden, Holland.
Jacob started playin drums and piano when he was just 5 years old. After hearing Duke Ellington’s album “Back to Back” he knew he wanted to do just one thing: play music. He practised drums and piano every day and 10 years later started his first band with his schoolmates, a hardcore punk band. Through this band he got in touch with skateboarding.. and hip hop.
After seeing the video to Gangstarr’s “Step in the Arena” he found his new passion: Scratching. He started practising, won a Dutch scratching contest and landed a job in the Fat Beats record store in Amsterdam. Only 17 at the time, he learned a lot through his store collegue and received local fame through his mixtapes. The next logical step was to get a MPC drumcomputer to enhance his mixtapes, which he did.. still being only 18.
A year later Jacob was asked to be tour DJ of Dutch-Brazil band Zuco103 and join them on their world tour. He quit Fat Beats and went along. Playing all the big festivals and well known clubs around the world for the next 2,5 years.
In between tours he recorded his first solo tracks, which were released on Steven de Peven’s Zephons Mom label, also from Amsterdam, entitled “Tea For Two”, which continues to sell to this date. Jacob and Steven bonded well and they formed Rednose Distrikt together. They went on to record and release several tracks, which were later compiled on one album called “Iller Dan Je Ouders” (Iller Than Your Parents) released by Kindred Spirits.
After this intense period of touring with Zuco 103 and making beats with Rednose Distrikt, he decided to take a break from it all. It took him 6 months to recover and he decided to quit both Zuco 103 and Rednose Distrikt, so that he could focus on his solo carreer. In doing so, he started his own label (in conjunction with Rush Hour Records) called Jahwell, on which he releases his soulful house music with a b-boy attitude. Next to that he spent the last 2 years working on his first solo album “Basement Soul”, which features guests vocals by Melodee, Lilian Vieira (Zuco 1030), Nicky Guiland (Heavy), Alma Horton, U-Gene and Yinka a.o. This will be released in May 2005. The future sees Jacob focusing on various hip hop projects as a producer as well as an MC. Next that he will be busy touring & promoting his solo album.
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